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Join with Less Government

Tom Vilsack is a rurally focused individual. The Democrat is a former Iowa governor – who is currently the only Department of Agriculture Secretary President Barack Obama has had.

Vilsack is, of course, a partisan politician. He was a dark horse on the short list to be presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick. He wants Democrats to win elections.

And it was Donkey victories he last week discussed on former Obama political advisor David Axelrod’s podcast. According to Politico, Vilsack articulated that “Democrats must stop ignoring rural voters if they ever hope to erase severe deficits in those parts of the country.”

Vilsack is – more than a mite mistaken. At this point, rural voters would LOVE for Democrats to ignore them. Democrat ignorance of their existence would be a marked improvement. Because right now, what Democrats are doing – is destroying them. In particular – President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Ah yes – farmers. Of course, farmers are a very important subset of very important rural America. To which Vilsack paid additional lip service.

“‘The food we eat, the water we drink, the energy we use, a significant percentage of the military we rely on comes from rural America,’ Vilsack said. ‘Folks in rural America do not believe there is a recognition or appreciation on the part of Democrats for that contribution to the country.’”

No “recognition or appreciation,” Secretary Vilsack? That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is your Understatement of the Week. What this administration apparently has for farmers and their fellow rurals – is loathing and contempt. Embodied in an endless avalanche of regulatory assaults.

Actually free, less-government-trade abroad – means we get to less government domestically too. Because we’re trading away pieces of domestic government inanity.

To wit: A longtime bane to conservatives’ existence – the Farm Bill. We can start with sugar:

“Florida Rep. Ted Yoho (has) put forth a resolution ‘expressing the sense of Congress that all direct and indirect subsidies that benefit the production or export of sugar by all major sugar producing and consuming countries should be eliminated.’…”

And we can take this free trade approach light years beyond just sugar – and light years beyond just subsidies. We free trade away more and more of the Farm Bill – and there will be less and less to renew.

And we can free trade away all sorts of additional government – tariffs, subsidies, regulations – that has nothing to do with farm stuffs.

Ted Yoho – is a Republican. Of the Republicans who are offering a less government approach – to farmers, rural voters, and everyone else.